fen kate lasell
This week during show-and-tell, I told the class how it’s our favorite holiday coming up. I told them how we are worshipping trees and dirt, and the spirits of the past billion years. I told everyone what you told me, so they’ll all be good mud-dwellers. I told them about how the spirits live under the swamp in bright, squishy layers. Then I shared them Daddy’s book but I didn’t say it was Daddy’s. Ms. Soper knew but didn’t rat on me. I am helping Daddy with the sales. I said, Everyone, have you read Jim C. Darling’s Encyclopedia of Swamp Learning and Lore? And I told them they can read more about the spirits in the LEARNING section under “decomposition,” but that they’ll have to buy the book to read it. Then today it was finally Halloween. I stayed in bed though. I did not try to get up and beg Daddy to have breakfast candy. I was feeling so low-down, like my belly was filled with silt. We’ve been like this lots of mornings, except for sometimes when Daddy makes pancakes or other times when I go into your bedroom and sit on top of him and paint his nails until he says Judith! In a mad but nice voice. But most days Daddy and I stay in our rooms. Today Daddy came into my room and sat down on the bed and gave my head a scratch. I do not feel in a celebrating mood, I told him. Me neither, Daddy said. Let’s dress up exactly as we feel. I feel moldy, I said to him. And then he did a laugh that turned into a little bit of crying. I feel small, Daddy said. Like that Toad Bug on the windowsill. OK, I said. I’ll be the Moldy Maiden. And you be a Toad Bug. The Moldrin’ Maiden, Daddy said. The Maiden of Mud and Dark and Moldrin’ Places. After that, Daddy and I had candy bars for breakfast. Then Daddy got some mushrooms from the swamp and stuck them on my tiara from last year. And I took an old blanket and made Daddy a brown triangle Toad Bug cape. Except I did not feel like getting candy from the neighbors. When we see them now, they apologize and whisper to Daddy, how am I doing, even though I’ll be standing right there. Instead, Daddy and I played in 36